The teacher would stand up front and lecture and you'd have two out of 37 actually paying attention. The rest sat around on their cell phones or talking to each other. Sometimes you'd pass dime bags around the back of the class or something equally stimulating. Other times there would be intellectual discussions about what rapper was richer, badder and generally better than the other. Sometimes rap battles would break out in the back while everything went on. The teachers were powerless over those students, too many to handle and too many to bother. They also still had a job to do so they kept teaching. I guess they hoped the trouble makers would allow the ones actually paying attention to do something. Which they did when they were preoccupied in the back with other things. Most of them were just waiting for the day to drop out, they had no interest in being there.
I remember seeing what schools were supposed to look and feel like on TV. I remember seeing movies and going, hell that's not my school at all. I was told by my peers that those are just "white people schools" full of pussies anyway. The thought lingered though, especially since I was one of those actually paying attention to my teachers and trying. I remember seeing teachers come in and going "this isn't going to work out, sorry guys" and walking out on us mid class. I always wondered if kids in suburban schools had that happen. I remember our lunch hour too, I wondered what the food was like at other schools and if lunch was as tense as it was here.
Lunch was one of the more tense hours of the day. Our lunch hall had 6-8 security guards standing watch as we got our lunch and sat down. Blacks would sit with blacks, Puerto Ricans with Puerto Ricans and Dominicans with Dominicans. Crossing ethnic barriers was a bit tricky. It was tolerated if you were friends, but don't you dare try and talk to someone across ethnic barriers without already knowing them. One of my friends learned the consequences of it very early on and paid very dearly for it.
He was a shorter kid, half black half Puerto Rican. He also had a crush on this black girl who sat on the "black" side of the lunch hall. I kept telling him everyday "you better leave that shit alone you don't know the kind of shit you'll get into man". I told him to at the very least get her number in class and meet her outside of school. Of course as usual in life no one ever listens to me and he brazenly went off to setup his little date by going to the "black" table and talking to her and her friends. At first everything was alright he was pretty happy and no one seemed to notice at the time he had talked to her. However most "hits" that are setup in high school are never carried out in the school. The swarm of security around you ensures that you're not getting hit there. Not to mention they scan us for weapons so we're much safer than normal. But you have to go home, you have to get on that SEPTA bus to your house. You're also by yourself and who knows, accidents happen on the way there.
The next day he was bragging the entire time in class about how much pussy he was going to get and how I was worrying too much. I needed to stop being a little bitch I was told. I had gotten a ride home that day and was comfortably at home playing the original Halo. Thus I was in my "zone" and not to be bothered and turned off my phone. At about 6pm I heard frantic banging on my door. It was my friend, he had been chased his entire way home from school by 6 black guys saying they didn't want a "Goya ass motherfucker" touching their girls. They'd set a dog on him and he had his leg littered in puncture wounds and gashes to his skin. He asked me for some hydrogen peroxide for the wounds and I kept staring at him like was crazy. My parents were out doing the groceries so I was left to tend to him on my own. I rushed him inside and shut my lights off and closed my blinds. Last thing I needed was them coming into my house because of him.
I sat him on our metal chair we use for sitting outside because I thought the blood stains wouldn't stick. I took a look at his leg and started dabbing his wounds with gauze and alcohol. He told me they dragged him by the neck as soon as he got off the bus and started beating him. Then everyone just took turns using everything they could to hurt him as best they could. As he bitched about the sting of the alcohol I kept noticing the blood didn't stop flowing. I told him he needed to go to the hospital and he just kept replying "naw, fuck that, fuck that, that's pussy shit". Then I saw a spot on his shirt just get redder and grow in size. I lifted it and noticed he had been stabbed a few times and a 2inch piece of his flesh had been cut off the side of his stomach. At that point I punched him in the face for being a dumbass and called 911. I rode the whole ride to the hospital with him. The doctors said they were amazed he walked for so long while losing that much blood.
Two weeks later someone shot the girl he was interested in. She had been walking to the corner store when a shooting broke out. After that, I never saw him so damned silent. Luckily most of the bigger Puerto Rican seniors started to look out for him after that. They took pity on him for having that misfortune. My parents started to pick him up and take him home when they found out. He dropped out about a year later and disappeared into the streets. I haven't heard from him since. This is why when I say a support network needs to exist I mean it. That kid found a refuge in my home, he needed a refuge he could stay in and a school he could take refuge in. I hope one day I make enough money to make that happen.
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